Daniel Sharpe FRS (6 April 180631 May 1856) was an English

geologist A geologist is a scientist who studies the solid, liquid, and gaseous matter that constitutes Earth and other terrestrial planets, as well as the processes that shape them. Geologists usually study geology, earth science, or geophysics, althoug ...

. He was born at Nottingham Place,

Marylebone Marylebone (usually , also , ) is a district in the West End of London, in the City of Westminster. Oxford Street, Europe's busiest shopping street, forms its southern boundary. An ancient parish and latterly a metropolitan borough, it me ...

, Middlesex. He studied a number of mountainous formations in Great Britain and Continental Europe and arrived at important conclusions about cleavage in rocks.

Life

Orphaned before his first birthday, he was looked after by a half-sister. His mother's family owned a bank in the

City of London The City of London is a city, ceremonial county and local government district that contains the historic centre and constitutes, alongside Canary Wharf, the primary central business district (CBD) of London. It constituted most of London f ...

, and his uncle was

Samuel Rogers Samuel Rogers (30 July 1763 – 18 December 1855) was an English poet, during his lifetime one of the most celebrated, although his fame has long since been eclipsed by his Romantic colleagues and friends Wordsworth, Coleridge and Byron. ...

, the poet and literary figure, so Daniel was not abandoned. At the age of 16 he entered the

counting house A counting house, or counting room, was traditionally an office in which the financial books of a business were kept. It was also the place that the business received appointments and correspondence relating to demands for payment. As the use of ...

of a Portuguese merchant in London. At the age of 25, after spending a year in

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of ...

, he joined his elder brother as a partner in a Portuguese mercantile business. As a geologist he first became known by his researches (1832–1840) on the geological structure of the neighbourhood of Lisbon. He studied the Silurian rocks of the Lake District and

North Wales North Wales ( cy, Gogledd Cymru) is a region of Wales, encompassing its northernmost areas. It borders Mid Wales to the south, England to the east, and the Irish Sea to the north and west. The area is highly mountainous and rural, with Snowdonia N ...

(1842–1844), and afterwards investigated the structure of the

Alps The Alps () ; german: Alpen ; it, Alpi ; rm, Alps ; sl, Alpe . are the highest and most extensive mountain range system that lies entirely in Europe, stretching approximately across seven Alpine countries (from west to east): France, Swi ...

(1854–1855). He was elected to the

Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...

in 1850. He published several essays on cleavage (1847–1852), and showed from the evidence of distortion of organic remains that the direction of the pressure producing contortions in the rocks was perpendicular to the planes of cleavage. Most of his papers were published in the ''Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society'', but one "On the Arrangement of the Foliation and Cleavage of the Rocks of the North of Scotland," was printed in the ''

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society ''Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society'' is a scientific journal published by the Royal Society. In its earliest days, it was a private venture of the Royal Society's secretary. It was established in 1665, making it the first journa ...

'' in 1852. He was author also of a ''Monograph on the Cephalopoda of the Chalk'', published by the Palaeontographical Society (1853–1857). In 1856 he was elected president of the

Geological Society of London The Geological Society of London, known commonly as the Geological Society, is a learned society based in the United Kingdom. It is the oldest national geological society in the world and the largest in Europe with more than 12,000 Fellows. Fe ...

, but he died in London, from the effects of a riding accident, on 31 May that year.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sharpe, Daniel 1806 births 1856 deaths People from Marylebone English geologists Fellows of the Royal Society Presidents of the Geological Society of London